The few passersby on the street eyed the scribe curiously but otherwise paid him no heed.
Riven waited, watching, expectant, hopeful. To his surprise, his heart was racing.
"Come on, girls!" the scribe called again. "Are you out there? Here!"
The scribe put his fingers to his mouth and was about to unleash another whistle on the world when two small, four legged figures padded out of an alley to Riven's left and started across the street.
Riven could not contain a grin when he saw his girls.
"There you are," said the scribe. He nudged the bucket of scraps with his toe. "Come now. Mealtime. It's boiled organ meat. Very good. And water I drew this morning."
The dogs pelted across the street, tails wagging, but skidded to a stop halfway. They stood in the street, noses in the air, sniffing. Both of their tails went stiff, then began to wag. The older bitch turned an excited circle, chuffing. Her whelp fairly jumped on her back in excitement.
Riven's grin broadened.
The girls looked in Riven's direction and bounded toward his hiding place, tongues lolling. That they had recognized his scent gave Riven more pleasure than anything had in a long while.
"Dogs!" the scribe called, and stomped his foot. "No! Come, here! Here! Beware the wagons!"
The dogs darted out of the way of two vegetable carts pulled by mules and crossed the street.
Riven rose from the shadows.
The scribe saw him and his expression fell. He reached for a post to help him keep his feet.
The girls swarmed Riven, jumping up on his legs, yipping. He held a hand down and they licked his fingers. He scratched their ears, petted their flanks, each in turn. They looked exactly as they had when he had left them. Both were well fed. The scribe had kept his word.
"You," called the scribe across the street, a nervous tremor in his voice. "You've returned."
Despite his delight at seeing the girls, Riven put on his professional sneer before walking across the street. The girls trailed him, circled him, tails wagging. He found it difficult to look intimidating with two small dogs jumping about his legs and yapping.
The scribe watched him approach, mouth open, as though he wanted to speak, but said nothing.
"I told you I would check on you from time to time," Riven said, and kept his voice hard.
The scribe nodded rapidly enough to shake his paunch. "Yes. I've done as you asked. You see?" He pointed at the buckets of scraps, the other bucket of water.
"I don't recall asking," Riven said.
For a moment, the scribe lost his tongue. "Yes. Well, they're good dogs. Very good. They come every day." He kneeled and patted their flanks with genuine affection. They licked his hand but quickly returned to circle excitedly around Riven. "Look how happy they are to see you," the scribe said, standing. "They've even forgotten their food."
Riven had trouble keeping his expression hostile.
"You've done well," Riven said, and it was the best show of appreciation he could manage. He left unstated the fact that he would have killed the scribe without hesitation had he done any less. "I will be leaving again soon. But I will be back for them. Until I am, keep doing as you have. You have enough coin?"
"Of course," the scribe said.
Riven had paid him enough previously to care for the dogs for a year or more.
"Good. Go, now." Riven waved him back to his shop. "Be about your business. I want to check on my garret in privacy."
The scribe looked to Riven, to the dogs, and almost smiled. He was wise enough to keep a straight face, however, and melted back into his shop.
Riven watched him go, then gathered the three buckets and entered the garret with the girls.
The moment he shut the door behind him, he sank to the floor and put the buckets before him.
"Eat, girls," he said.
They seemed more interested in him than the food, so he accommodated them with stomach rubs and head scratching. Finally, he coaxed them into eating. As always, they shared space around the bucket rather than squabbling for position as most dogs would.
"No rivalry for First and Second, eh?" he said. The older bitch turned to regard him with a question in her brown eyes and scraps dangling from her jaws. He only smiled and she returned to her meal.
Afterward he spent a few hours with his girls, doing nothing more than playing or petting them. He wondered what they did all day, and the wondering made him worry. They could run afoul of a wagon cart, a horse, or some petty bastards like the pirates Riven had left dead on the streets of Skullport.
His girls were gentle creatures-he had no idea why-but he did know that gentleness was not rewarded on the street. He had learned that lesson often in his youth. But somehow his girls had managed to survive without becoming vicious.
He watched as they ran circles around the room, barking, nipping playfully at each other, licking him, tackling each other. They were friends, inasmuch as dogs could be friends.
"Friends," he said softly, and pondered.
* * * * *
The bearded priest who had called down from the top of the stairs awaited them just outside the temple's double doors.
"Welcome to the Sanctum," he said to Cale, Magadon, and Jak, though the hardness of his voice belied his words.
Engraved characters from a dozen or more Faerunian alphabets covered the verdigris-stained copper double doors of the Sanctum of the Scroll. Cut into the smooth stone lintel above the doors was a phrase in the common tongue that captured the pith of Oghma's doctrine: Strength can move only mountains. Ideas can shake worlds.
Magadon nudged Cale, nodded at the inscription, and said, "Can you mark that?"
Cale nodded, read it for the guide.
"True, that," Magadon said, as they entered the temple.
The double doors opened directly onto a small foyer beyond which stood the worship hall itself. Cale welcomed the shelter from the late afternoon sun. Once within the foyer, the priests uttered a short invocation and removed the masks they wore.
Within the worship hall, small wooden desks stood in a circle around a lectern on a raised dais. Acolytes in unadorned black vests sat at a third or so of the desks, copying manuscripts, scrolls, even entire books. They did not look up from their work. Wooden shelves taller than Cale and stuffed with sheaves of parchment and scrolls covered much of the walls. A small dome composed entirely of glass capped the ceiling. Sunlight poured in through it. Several doors led out of the worship hall.
Cale knew the services in Oghma's temple were often as much a classroom lesson as a sermon. The priesthood frequently offered lectures on subjects as broad as the history of the Creator Races and planar mechanics, and as narrow as brick making, leather working, and literacy. Oghmanytes served Oghma the Binder by encouraging creative thought and disseminating knowledge and ideas. Cale wondered if they maintained a lending library, like the Temple of Deneir.
"I will inform High Loremaster Yannathar of our visitors," the middle-aged priest with the beard said to Sephris.
"Of course you will, Hrin," Sephris said dismissively. "Tell him also what you suspect, for it is truth-these are the men who were indirectly responsible for my death. Tell the High Loremaster that they, like Undryl Yannathar himself, questioned my spirit after my body's death. But unlike him, they at least had the good grace to let me sleep again after they'd had their answers."
Hrin flushed at that. Sephris continued. "Tell him, too, that I am in no danger from them, or at least no more than the entirety of this realm is in danger from them."